Since 2014, the Ministry of Commerce sincerely implemented Vice Premier Wang Yang’s important instructions on the symposium when he inspected e-commerce in Beijing, and taking promoting the sustainable and healthy development of e-commerce as the goal, made efforts to optimize the development environment and sped up application and generalization, with great progress made in all aspects. In the first three quarters of 2014, the trade volume of e-commerce reached 8.6 trillion yuan, and was expected to excess 12 trillion yuan in the whole year, up over 20% year on year; the trade volume of online retail of the first three quarters reached 1.8 trillion yuan, accounting for 9.6% of the total retail sales of consumer goods, and was expected to excess 2.7 trillion yuan in the whole year, up over 40% year on year.
I. E-commerce institutional environment was optimized.
At the legislation level, the Ministry of Commerce actively took part in and promoted the legislation of the Electronic Commerce Law and the amendment of laws related to e-commerce like the Food Safety Law and the Advertisement Law. At the level of department regulations, the Ministry of Commerce formulated the Stipulations on the Formulation Procedures of Transaction Rules of the Third Party Platform of Online Retail, which will play an important role in protecting the legal rights of transaction parties and guaranteeing the healthy development of the industry. And at the level of standards and specifications, the Ministry of Commerce carried out studies on the standard framework system and the general framework of online retail standards.
II. Application of e-commerce in key sectors was promoted.
1. The demonstration system of e-commerce was optimized. Together with eight departments including the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce carried out the building of e-commerce demonstration cities. At the beginning of 2014, the second batch of 30 e-commerce demonstration cities were selected on the basis of the first batch of 20 cities. The Ministry of Commerce also carried out the building of national e-commerce demonstration bases, and selected the first batch of 34 demonstration bases, and guided them to integrate social service sources and innovate public service modes. At present, we have issued the notice on building the second batch of demonstration bases. The Ministry of Commerce has completed the compiling of the cases of 40 typical demonstration enterprises and is preparing to carry out the building of e-commerce demonstration enterprises of 2014-2015, and play the demonstration and leading role of demonstration enterprises in mode innovation, market exploiting, cost reduction and consumption stimulation.
2. Synergetic development of e-commerce and logistics was promoted. Together with the Ministry of Finance and the State Post Bureau, the Ministry of Commerce carried out pilot work of synergetic development of e-commerce and logistics in Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Hangzhou, Fuzhou and Guiyang, in order to explore solutions to the issues including standard operation of city delivery vehicles, construction of distribution stations and distribution of the “last one mile”.
3. E-commerce application in rural areas and agricultural products was promoted. Rural commercial information service was strengthened, the national public service platform for agricultural product information was opened, the normalized matchmaking of online purchase and sales of agricultural products was promoted and the early warning and assistance mechanism for difficulties in agricultural product sales was established. Cooperating with the CCTV agriculture channel, we introduced a series on e-commerce of agricultural products. We also organized online purchase and sales matchmaking of agricultural products, realizing sales of more than 10 billion yuan.
III. Support system of e-commerce was optimized.
1. The statistical system of e-commerce was strengthened. In 2014, the national information management and analysis system of e-commerce was opened, forming a comprehensive work platform combining five functions including statistics, monitoring, credit, business management and enterprise services. Cooperating with related departments, organizations and enterprises, the Ministry of Commerce promoted the construction of the e-commerce statistical report system, introduced the Statistical Indicator System of E-commerce (Total), established data sharing channels, enhanced capacity of data calculating and formulated seasonal statistical indicators and methods. The Ministry of Commerce persisted in releasing the China E-commerce Report and the Market Evaluation Report of Chinese Online Retail.
2. Construction of e-commerce credit system sped up. The Ministry of Commerce carried out studies on standards of e-commerce credit evaluation index and credit files, and formulated unified credit evaluation and rewards and punishment rules. We also built the foundation database for e-commerce credit, and built an open, transparent and dynamic credit record for enterprises. The Ministry of Commerce also optimized the mechanism of information sharing and synergetic supervision among departments, and bolstered the construction of the mechanism of the third-party credit service organizations of information collection, sharing and use, forming an e-commerce business credit system led by the government and participated in by multi-parties with unified standards.
3. E-commerce talents training was promoted. The Ministry of Commerce promoted the upgrading program of e-commerce professional and technical talents and knowledge, and actively carried out training of high-end e-commerce talents in shortage. We also promoted the construction of national continuing education bases for e-commerce talents and promoted industrial organizations, special training organizations and enterprises to carry out e-commerce talents training and job capacity training. And the Ministry of Commerce organized four e-commerce and information training courses for local commercial departments and commerce and trade enterprises, training about 800 people.
IV. The Ministry of Commerce took part in international communication and cooperation, as well as the formulation of standards and rules.
The Ministry of Commerce launched the proposal of APEC e-commerce innovation development, gaining unanimous approval of all economies, becoming one of the achievements of the APEC meetings in China. We completed China-ROK FTA e-commerce negotiations, and carried out China-Japan-ROK and regional comprehensive economic partnership FTA negotiations on e-commerce. We carried out e-commerce communication and cooperation cross the straits, and took part in the deliberation work of the WTO on its policies of trade in China concerning e-commerce. We also participate in the negotiations of ESCAP on paperless trading. We launched the preparation work of the SCO work panel of e-commerce and promoted the construction of a dialogue mechanism of e-commerce experts of BRICS.
